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Collector Fred Houk loved Florida, family, faith

Orlando Sentinel – August 23, 2011

Frederick “Fred” Houk Sr. collected experiences as much as he collected matchbook covers and pictures of historical markers.

Houk used his hobbies to learn more about Florida and meet people who shared their stories.

“He was really a lover of Florida history,” said his son, Guy Houk of Orlando.

Fred Houk died Aug. 16 of a heart attack, authorities said. He was 84.

Houk was born and raised in Franklin, N.C., but lived in Florida for more than four decades.

The Maitland man worked in the citrus industry and documented about 2,000 historical markers as he traveled around the state on business. The back of his business card read, “a man who intends to drive from end to end on every numbered highway in Florida.”

He might have succeeded, too, had the state not kept building highways.

“I think he had a deep natural curiosity about people and places,” Guy Houk said. “Florida and North Carolina history were particular passions.”

In 1987, the Florida Cabinet honored Houk in a ceremony in Tallahassee that recognized his contributions to the State Historical Marker Program.

Houk’s next project was to collect thousands of matchbook covers. He prided himself on owning what relatives say was the world’s largest collection of Florida-related covers.

The covers document state history through restaurants and tourist attractions, including the now-defunct Ronnie’s Restaurant in Orlando and Tropical Hobbyland in Miami.

In his free time, Houk was active at Winter Park Christian Church and, with his wife, Dorothy, volunteered with Meals on Wheels.

“He was absolutely the most selfless human being that I’ve ever met,” said Houk’s other son, Jackson Houk of Atlanta. “He would be embarrassed if anybody wanted to praise him. He was a talk-is-cheap kind of a guy. He believed deeply in putting others before self.”

Houk met his wife of six decades at Eustis’ Fort Mason Fruit Co., which Houk’s uncle owned and where they both worked.

For 11 years, the couple lived in Kansas City, Mo., where Houk was an employee of the Florida Citrus Commission. Later, he was a district manager for Dole, the fruit and vegetable company, in Chicago and Charlotte, N.C.

The family, which by then included three sons, moved to Maitland in 1968. Houk worked for the former Citrus Central, an Orlando-area growers’ cooperative that produced orange juice. In 1981, Houk started his own citrus-sales business, Houk and Associates.

Houk served in the Navy at the end of World War II and graduated from Tennessee’s Carson-Newman College, where he studied physics and history, his wife said.

“He was thoroughly open and honest,” Dorothy Houk said. “He had a great sense of humor. He didn’t tolerate artificiality or pretense.”

In addition to his wife and sons, Houk is survived by four grandchildren. Another son, Frederick J. Houk Jr., of North Carolina died in 2007 at age 56.

Baldwin-Fairchild Funeral Home — East Altamonte Chapel, handled arrangements.

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